Piia Wirsu (VO): The Southern Ocean’s one of the fiercest places in the world. Winds of up to 150 kilometres an hour tear across the water, whipping up waves 10 metres high.
The smell of salt water works its way into every crevice, and the air feels sharp.
And out in the middle of this heaving, desolate world are ten men in an emergency life raft.
Mick Doleman: There's no light, it's black and the raft is being hammered by getting picked up by a wave, taken to the peak of the wave and then smashed back down into the trough.
Piia Wirsu (VO): And when a storm rolls around? Well, it gets even hairier.
Mick Doleman: The two sides of the raft coming together and smashing into each other and nine of us at that time, we're just getting head butted and thrown into each other's space because we had no way to secure ourselves in the raft. And it was horrific.
The biggest fear I had in those circumstances was the bottom of the raft coming apart and us falling through it to our death.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Mick Doleman was pretty we behind the ears when he went to sea with nine other crew he'd only just met.
Twelve days later, he'd stumble out of the thick, savage, indifferent Tasmanian bush cold, hungry, dehydrated, having stared death in the face.
Mick Doleman: I didn't talk about it for years and years because it was such a difficult period and I didn't wanna be seen to be a storyteller.
Piia Wirsu: How do you look back now, Mick, on everything that happened?
Mick Doleman: Well, I could say I wish it hadn't of happened. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And that was a good lesson in strength.
Piia Wirsu: What do you hope people take away from this story?
Mick Doleman: I'd like them to think that I'm a man of endurance.
Piia Wirsu (VO): I grew up in Australia's wild island state Tasmania, and have spent a lot of time bushwalking, climbing, sea kayaking.
And I've often wondered, when I've been outdoors battling the elements - if everything went wrong, would I too be a person of endurance?
Or would I fall apart?
How many of us really know, when there’s nothing left to hide behind – who do we become?
I'm Piia Wirsu, and this is Expanse: From the Dead - the story of a doomed ship called the Blythe Star, of ten men given up for dead, and what happens when everything is ripped away.
How do you survive the un-survivable?
For Mick the answer to that question starts in a small town, with a young woman named Joanie.
Archive reporter: Inflation in Australia has soared to its highest level in 20 years. In simple terms, it means that a man receiving $100 a week this time last year would now have to receive $111 a week to maintain a comparable standard of living.
Archive reporter: A survey conducted at a Sydney school showed that Paul Hogan was even better known than the Prime Minister of Australia.
Archive reporter: Well, tomorrow, after almost 20 years of controversy and acrimonious political squabbling, Sydney's Opera House has its official opening celebrations.
Piia Wirsu (VO): 1973 in Australia was the era of the Hills Hoist clothesline, of HQ Holdens and the Women's Weekly recipe for Apricot Chicken - bit posh.
There were also a lot of handlebar moustaches getting 'round.
And it was the year a firey 18-year-old from Victoria was young and in love...
Mick Doleman: Okay, my name is Mick Doleman.
I lived in a place called Doveton. And it was a tough housing commission area with every household bursting at the seams with kids.
It was a lovely place to grow up. But it was also lovely when I got out of the joint.
Piia Wirsu (VO): I'm pretty familiar with this feeling, it's actually how I felt about Tassie when I left school. Couldn't wait to leave.
Something about being such a small place, everyone knows everything.
Warts and all, and it can be kinda hard to escape your reputation.
Mick Doleman: I don't think Joanie liked me all that much because I was a bit of a rough bugger.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Joanie McGrath was about to turn 17, she was the middle of six, with two older brothers.
Mick Doleman: Our families knew each other very well, the McGraths and the Dolemans.
Joanie Doleman: I avoided him for years, they used to come to our house and as a young girl I used to go and put myself in the bedroom, or go and visit a girlfriend or something.
Oh, no, the Dolemans are all too rough for me.
Mick Doleman: I think she thought all us Dolemans were mad. But, I think my sister told me one day that Joanie was asking about me, which surprised me enormously.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Joanie was working in a bridal shop - think long sleeved wedding dresses, dusky pink, frilled bridesmaid dresses... and brown safari suits for the men.
Seriously. I’ve seen my parents wedding photos.
Joanie Doleman: I'd seen Marie his sister at the shop and I said, ‘How's Mick? I haven't seen him for such a long time’.
She said, ‘Oh no, he's good. He's been at sea and you know, he's coming home soon,’ and what have you. And I said, ‘Oh, give him my regards’.
Mick Doleman: And I took the initiative to go and re-introduce myself to her, and I got the courage up to ask her to go out with me one time.
Joanie Doleman: And I said, ‘Oh I don't I don't know about that’ I said, ‘I'll need to ask mum and I'll get back to you’.
Mick Doleman: She had to have a council meeting with her family to seek permission for me to take her out, and there was a house was divided.
Piia Wirsu: This sounds very sort of Romeo and Juliet, Mick.
Mick Doleman: I don't think that would have been on my mind at those days. I was pretty rough.
Piia Wirsu (VO): This wasn't news to Joanie's Mum.
Joanie Doleman: Mum said, ‘You know, we all know Mick, but he's a bit rough around the edges and I’m not sure about this’.
Anyway, she had a meeting with my brothers, and one said, ‘Absolutely no’, and the other one said, ‘Oh come on, he'll make sure nothing happens to her and I think you'll be right, I think we'll make a good choice if we say yes’.
So, Mum agreed with my brother and said okay. So Mum said to Mick, 'I want her home by 11 o'clock Mick’.
Mick Doleman: So the jury came back and I got a promotion on probation.
Piia Wirsu: So, given that you were given permission on this probationary standard, where did you take her for your first date?
Mick Doleman: Oh, we spared no expense. It was Red Rooster or Chicken Tonight or some crappy joint and it was pretty ordinary.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Joanie actually reckons it was the Pizza Hut in Springvale. Either way I'm surprised he made it through probation to be honest.
Mick Doleman: Yeah, well, yeah, I did.
Joanie Doleman: I'd never had a pizza in my life. Didn't even know what a pizza was, but he took me to the pizza shop and I thought that was just wonderful.
When I did go out with Mick, I realised that he might be rough around the edges, but he was fun.
He had a great personality, Mick, and he always makes you laugh. He's just got the right things to say.
Mick Doleman: She was such a beautiful woman that I thought to myself, how did I jag her? How the hell?
Joanie Doleman: We just had a great time and he had me home by 11 o'clock and the rest, yeah, I just kept going out with him.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Things were going well. Pizza hut was doing good business, or Red Rooster, Chicken Tonight... whatever it was.
But then, Mick got called to sea - or as he puts it;
Mick Doleman: I got shanghaied, as they call it, to join the Blythe Star in Hobart.
Piia Wirsu (VO): The Blythe Star.
A 44-metre long steel coastal freighter, chartered by the Tasmanian Transport Commission to get cargo to King island.
He packed his bags and flew to Tasmania - the small island state clinging to the skirts of mainland Australia, that sits smack bang in the wild westerly winds that scream across the southern ocean... The Roaring Forties.
Joanie Doleman: I just had a real horrible feeling in my stomach, but I think that was because it was his first time at sea with me and I got used to him being around. I was just upset.
Mick Doleman: All I wanted to do in my life was to be a seafarer. My dad was a seafarer and he took me as a ring bolt as it's called in maritime terms, which is basically a stowaway, on a ship from Melbourne to Portland. I think he'd done that to dissuade me from wanting to be a seafarer, but all it did was convince me even more that I wanted to be a seafarer.
I was young, and I could eat a ship. I loved them.
Piia Wirsu (VO): There was really never going to be another job for Mick.
Mick Doleman: I love the camaraderie. Just the fact that all grown men, young and old, and all looking after each other making sure that nobody gets hurt or injured or whatever the case may be, because you have no ambulances, you have no fire brigade, you have nothing at sea, you got to do it all yourself.
Piia Wirsu (VO): While he was sad to say goodby to Joanie, there must have been a spark of excitement landing in Hobart and heading down to Prince of Wales Bay to join the 10-man crew and ship that would be his home for the next few days.
Mick Doleman: I got down to the ship and I got there at night, there was no power. The ship was in complete darkness.
The mess room was tiny. They're all sitting in darkness, and I just introduced myself to them all and they told me that for some reason someone's pulled the power cord and thrown it in the drink.
So they had to get divers down the next day and it was just a bit mad.
Piia Wirsu (VO): This seems wild to me. Like something out of a movie - where you're not sure if it's meant to be a comedy or not.
But, it kinda sounds like that was pretty standard for the Tasmanian Transport Commission.
A boring fact you should know; they were actually overseen by the Tasmanian government, which is why what you’re about to hear is so cooked.
Colm Whelan: Cowboys, a cowboy outfit.
(Phone dial tone)
Colm Whelan: Good morning?
Piia Wirsu: Hello Colm, how are you doing?
Piia Wirsu (VO): Colm Whelan has spent decades at sea on all kinds of ships. He's retired now, but we managed to track him down in a food market in Penang, Malaysia of all places.
Colm Whelan: I spent about three months in Penang and three months in the Philippines enjoying my twilight years.
Colm Whelan: Tas Transport didn't adhere to all the rules and regulations. They made their own up as they went along.
Piia Wirsu (VO): This is something I've heard from a lot of people, that the Tasmanian Transport Commission played pretty fast and loose back then.
And they had a lot of cargo to shift, in this case farmers on King Island needed the fertiliser on board the Blythe Star, like yesterday. Not to mention the beer.
So the stevedores were loading her up.
Mick Doleman: There was an interesting comment from one of the stevedores. He said, ‘Where's your plimsoll line, on the funnel?’.
Now, the plimsoll line is a measuring template on the side of the ship. The plimsoll line being referred to as being ‘on the funnel’ would mean that your ship is underwater and the water level is up around the funnel.
It was a bit of a joke. But I didn't realise how serious a joke it was.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Mick also didn’t realise that the locking bars were safely packed away in storage in Melbourne, so they could fit more cargo on the decks.
If you’re wondering what the locking bars do? They keep the hatches closed to stop water pouring into the ship if anything goes wrong. Should it ever come to that.
The ship sailed out of Hobart around 6.30 on Friday evening.
Mick Doleman: Hobart's a beautiful place to come in and out of on a ship. And I steered the ship under Hobart Bridge and we set sail and off we went, and it was just another day in the life of a seafarer.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Something that's inescapable for a seafarer is hierarchy. The captain's in charge. Everyone has their place, and knows it.
Mick? Yeah, well his place was at the bottom of that ladder – he was brought on as the deckhand.
The Blythe Star’s chief in charge was Captain George Cruikshank, a weather-beaten old Scotsman. By all accounts pretty partial to whiskey.
Mick Doleman: He looked like a very scrawny little Scot. He wasn't a big man, he looked a bit frail.
Unlike Ken Jones who was a chief mate, who stood tall and looked fit - a tough guy.
Piia Wirsu (VO): The crew took turns at the wheel of the ship, swapping out every two hours. And as dawn broke on Saturday, they saw a dull day with the odd sheet of drizzle revealed from the bridge.
A gentle, rolling swell - so different from the white capped towering waves the wind can throw up.
Mick Doleman: I had a stint on the wheel it was early in the morning, and then I changed shifts with Mick Power.
I went down and went to bed and then all hell broke loose.
Piia Wirsu (VO): That morning the ship's cook, Alf Simpson, was up at 5.30 to get brekky on the go. Forty-four years old, he was a family man, solid, with curly hair and one of those faces made for smiling. He liked a joke.
Someone remembers that he'd load your plate with food and if you complained he'd say ‘Just leave what you can't manage’. Then, if you went back to the galley with any skerric left untouched he'd say ‘What, don't you like my cooking?’.
Like I said, loved a joke.
Around 8am, Alf looked up and spat out a few choice words as his pots crashed off the stove when the ship lurched suddenly to the side.
Seaman Cliff Langford, in after his shift steering on the bridge, had just finished breakfast and grabbed a cup of tea, when he was pitched out of the galley.
Cliff Langford (Actor): Strike A bloody light!
Piia Wirsu (VO): Thank God for the doorframe keeping him aboard, he went back in to refill his cuppa.
The sudden roll of the ship went unnoticed by some of the crew still dozing.
In his bunk, Stan 'Tas' Leary had retired for a smoke and a snooze, when he heard his clock fall over.
Confused, he stood it up again and rolled back over.
And Mick Doleman was out light like a light in his narrow, low bunk.
Mick Doleman: I felt some pressure on me pushing me up against the bulkhead, which is the outer ship.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Just minutes later Tas Leary’s clock was thrown, clattering across the floor.
And so was Mick.
Mick Doleman: This time it threw me out of the bunk and I landed on the deck, looked at the portal and it was just all water, which meant we were submerged. And the ship didn't come back.
Piia Wirsu (VO): In the galley, Cliff Langford abandoned his cuppa – he looked over at Alf and said;
Cliff Langford (actor): ‘It looks like it’s going right over this time’.
Piia Wirsu (VO): They scramble through the crew quarters, past where Mick and Tas are in their cabins and are the first up on deck, now almost completely tipped over.
Mick Doleman: I remembered watching movies about ships sinking and what always feared me was having water pouring into your alleyway and companion ways and into your cabin.
And that's what I was thinking about. I thought this is sinking and this water is going to come in here and drown me.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Adrenaline was pumping through Mick's body, numbing the cold even though he's in nothing but the jocks he went to bed in, and he has one thought: survival.
Mick Doleman: Water was pouring into my cabin. It was just under my knee, and rising very, very fast.
So I took off in the alleyway and water was coming the other way, pushing me back, it seemed like there were a thousand things happening.
I seen Malcolm McCarroll in the laundry. Someone had left the porthole open and water was pouring in.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Malcolm McCarroll – who'd also been thrown from his bunk moments earlier - had seen water gushing in and was now trying desperately to get the porthole closed, water cascading around him.
Mick Doleman: I looked at Malcolm. I think he was looking in the mirror because we both were in absolute shock.
He was white and I'm pretty sure I was white too, with fear and trepidation about where is all this going to go.
We never said a word to each other. Didn't need to. And we looked at each other, which seemed like forever but it wasn't, it was only a couple of seconds or more, and we just shook heads and said, ‘Upstairs, let's get out of here, it's gone’. And took off.
So I climbed up on the companionway and by this time the ship is at a 90 degrees. You're basically walking on the walls.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Getting out on deck meant clinging on to anything they could find and hauling themselves up on to the outside of the ship's hull to join Cliff and Alf, where they could finally stand up.
Mick Doleman: If you've got a ship, just turn it on its side. So the starboard side was all submerged and the port side was out of the water and was slowly getting filled with water by the stern.
Mick Doleman: Tassie Leary, who was the bosun, like a foreman in maritime terms, was in endeavoring to get the life raft away.
Piia Wirsu (VO): With limited success. A tiny peg holding it on was swollen, jamming it in place.
With the seconds ticking away, Tas – any hint of sleep long gone, his clock drowned and forgotten in his cabin - looked around desperately for something, anything.
Malcolm McCarroll thrust a piece of wood at him, Tas grabs it and starts belting the raft.
By this time, most of the crew are up with Mick and Malcolm, watching as Tas wrestles with the only thing that can save them.
If they end up in the cold water with nothing, their time left will counted in minutes.
Mick Doleman: All I could think of is what a miserable way to go. Freezing cold water, a pair of jockettes on, nothing else.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Finally, the pin releases.
Mick Doleman: Tassie did get it out of its cradle and then he threw it into the ocean and started pulling on the painter. It’s a long cord and he's pulling it and it's got a gas canister in the body and when you get to the end of the rope it ignites this cylinder and the raft inflates.
There's always worries that they may not do it properly and you'd lose your life raft. So we were really, really worried as Tassie was getting to the end of this tether and he pulled it.
And my world is about to disappear from under me and I'm off. And I was convinced that I was gone. We all would be gone.
Until we seen that the life raft come into life.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Bright orange, circular with a tent-like rubber canopy over it, Mick had never seen anything so beautiful.
But the poop deck where the life raft was sits right over the propeller... and with the engine still going, it’s still turning.
Mick Doleman: Once you get into the water, you just get churned up by the propeller.
Piia Wirsu (VO): John Eagles was the chief engineer, when the ship started going over he raced down into the bowels of the sinking ship.
Mick Doleman: If the chief engineer hadn't gone down to the engine room and shut the engine down, we would have been killed.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Eagles emerged up on deck, an inch-wide burn the length of his lower left leg.
Mick Doleman: So, that bit of work was a brave, brave move. You've done a marvellous job.
Piia Wirsu (VO): The men pile into the life raft, leaping from their sinking ship.
Mick Doleman: I had the painter, which is a rope that secures the life raft to the ship. I was endeavouring to cut the rope off because the last thing we wanted to do was have a rope wrapped around the ship and drag our life raft with it.
So I was preparing to get the painter clear and everyone's saying, ‘Hurry up, get it off, get it off, get it off’. And the more they harassed me to get it off, the more I tried, and the harder it bloody got.
And then we realised that we had got one crew member short.
Ken Jones, the chief officer.
Piia Wirsu (VO): Ken was down in his cabin when the ship started listing.
Realising what was happening he raced to the door, but couldn't push it open because of the weight of water on the other side.
He was trapped.
Heart racing, he just had to wait, watching water pouring into his cabin filling up higher and higher as the ship went down.
Finally, surrounded by water the pressure equalised and he could force his way through. But everything was underwater.
He took a deep breath and swam for it.
Mick Doleman: He swam out at the poop deck and we pulled him on board and got the painter clear and then the ship lifted up and sunk by the stern.
It was one of the most spectacular sights I've ever seen, with the ship rising out of the water, with the bow up in the air and the accommodation just slipped away.
Nothing, not a thing. Not any resemblance of anything from the ship on the surface. Nothing at all.
Piia: Wow.
Mick Doleman: We were probably 30 meters max from that ship.
We said, well, thank Christ that that ship didn't fall our way and clean us up on the way through.
Piia Wirsu (VO): It’d been just half an hour since Alf dished up breakfast to Cliff in the galley. Fifteen minutes since Mick was thrown from his bunk and all of it is gone.
Mick Doleman: You don't think about the bravery of it all. You think about survival and what's going to be done and keep a clear head don't panic.
I mean, it’s good advice but it's hard to deliver that until you're in that circumstances and you do think clearly, you do the right thing, you do whatever is needed to get yourself and your colleagues out of that circumstance or situation.
Mick Doleman: When we all got clear of the vessel and we're in the life raft, we're chattering our way like school kids, just talking about how lucky we are, that we didn't go down with that ship.
Piia Wirsu (VO): The ten crew all made it out alive and sit shoulder to shoulder in this raft - about the size of a two or three man tent.
I can just imagine the adrenaline-fueled, boyish grins as they whooped in the face of the death they'd just escaped.
Mick Doleman: How good was this? What was that? What was this? What was that?
I asked the captain, Did we get the portable radios? No. Did we get a Mayday? No. Does anybody know where we're going? No.
So, then the reality sort of sinks back into you that this is going to be a much more serious set of circumstances that we're in.
That we're still in a bit of shit.
Piia Wirsu (VO): This is Expanse: From the Dead.
Mick Doleman: We didn't at that time realize just what's ahead of us, we were soon to find out.
Piia Wirsu (VO): This season of ABC’s Expanse podcast is hosted by me, Piia Wirsu. My producer and sound engineer is the amazing Grant Wolter. Executive producer is Blythe Moore, Senior producer is me. With thanks to Liz Gwynn and Helen Shield for additional production and research.
Acknowledging the traditional owners of the land this podcast is produced on, the land of the Stoney Creek Nations, and Awabakal country.
Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.
As 18-year-old Mick Doleman farewelled young love to set sail on the Blythe Star, he could never have seen what was coming.
Just 14 hours into their journey, Mick’s life – along with those of his rag tag crew of shipmates – would change forever as they scrambled to save themselves from a sinking ship.
In this episode of From the Dead, host Piia Wirsu discovers the uneasy signs that all was not right when the Blythe Star set sail.
Glossary of key maritime terms:
Bridge – a room where the ship was navigated and steered from
Galley – the ship’s kitchen
Poop deck – a raised deck right at the back of the ship, over a cabin
Port – the left side
Porthole – a window in the ship’s hull
Starboard – the right side
Wheelhouse – see ‘bridge’